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Legal Stance of Ilyashev & Partners towards Attempted Illegal Attack onto SE Antonov

News date: 4 August 2014

The Ministry of Industrial Policy of Ukraine illegally appoints a new acting Director General of SE Antonov

On August 01, 2014 SE Antonov managed to withstand a raider attack against its office in Kyiv. The attack was organized by an official of the Ministry of Industrial Policyof Ukraine, Mr. Oleksandr Kalenkov, appointed by the President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, in May 2013.

The office of the Director General was invaded by 16 men who attempted to take hold of the company’s documents and of the corporate seal. The invaders acted on the basis of a photocopy of what allegedly was an order of the Ministry of Industrial Policy by which Mr. Merenkov was appointed to the position of acting Director General of SE Antonov. Mr. Merenkov is a former executive of SE Antonov who had been dismissed for an unauthorized disclosure of secret information. As a result he was denied any further access to the state secret. In addition, current Ukrainian laws do not allow placement of official obligations within a certain enterprise onto a person who is not an employee of such enterprise.

Security guards and employees of the enterprise managed to push the unlucky raiders off the company’s premises.

The said actions of Mr. Kalenkov and other persons involved in the incident are absolutely and totally illegal.

As Roman Marchenko, Senior Partner of Ilyashev & Partners Law Firm, stressed: “In particular, the Ministry of Industrial Policy (which is undergoing liquidation now) is not authorized to appoint or dismiss executives of SE Antonov because as early as on March 23, 2014, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine resubordinated SE Antonov from under control of the Ministry of Industrial Policy and placed it under control of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine. Accordingly, only the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine is empowered to appoint and dismiss the management of SE Antonov. We have already submitted a complaint to the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine which will undoubtedly initiate the criminal proceeding against the persons who attempted to shift the management of SE Antonov.